The insurance protects farmers against normal price fluctuations that could be hedged in futures markets, Samuelson writes. "Premiums are heavily subsidized, as are the expenses of insurance companies. With subsidized premiums, farmers buy lavish protection."

Farm subsidies are the “low-hanging fruit” of spending cuts. But Congress cannot force itself to change, and the subsidies have become a symbol of our wasteful spending and overall budget dilemma.

Others also criticize farm subsidies.

For instance, the New York Post, calling the subsidies "A Load of Crop" in a headline, reported that many wealthy New Yorkers are getting subsidies for owning farmland.

They include Mark F. Rockefeller, son of the late Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, who received $342,634 for not farming land he owns in Idaho from 2001 to 2011.

“Payments are going to people in Manhattan who simply have invested in farmland and are about as far away from farmers as one could imagine,” Craig Cox of the Environmental Working Group, which keeps records on farm subsidy recipients, tells the Post.